


Gravity and Inertia

by pollitt



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Episode Related, Episode Tag, Established Relationship, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-11
Updated: 2010-07-11
Packaged: 2017-10-10 12:29:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/99741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pollitt/pseuds/pollitt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gravity and inertia work upon, and in perfect balance with, one another to create an orbit of one body around another.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gravity and Inertia

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for the Stages of Love community. Thanks go, as always, to Maverick for her read through of the combined stories, and for assistance with the title.
> 
> My theme was the Five Stages of a Relationship: (1) Confession, (2) Touch, (3) Kiss/Make Out, (4) Sex/Physical or Emotional Intimacy, (5) Morning After/Outcome/End of the Road. We were given the freedom to mix up the order, if we chose, and for this story stage 2 and 3 have swapped places (I didn't forget how to count, honest :)
> 
> Episodes referred to include: "The Storm," "The Eye," "Grace Under Pressure," and "The Return, Part I"

(1) **Espial**

"I love you, Sheppard, but there are some days that I really don't like you."

The world is red-tinged and muffled, and John's having a difficult enough time remembering who he is, much less where. The itch of electrodes on his skin and the pain in his chest narrow down his location to the infirmary.

He remembers the mission--trade negotiations and information gathering; nice, smiling people who grinned even when they brandished their tri-barreled guns; and then a firework explosion of pain and screaming and black.

Somewhere in the white noise of everything, he hears Rodney's words, clear as day. And John knows he wasn't supposed to hear that, that Rodney would deny such an admission until he was blue in the face, because he doesn't--

Only, apparently, he does.

But John doesn't--

Huh.

Maybe he's wrong. And maybe he's wrong in a "the Earth is flat" kind of way. John thinks about Genii knives and sunken jumpers, and the ache in his chest isn't related to any injury he's sustained.

"Likewise, buddy," John wants to say, but he finds his mouth doesn't want to work, so he squeezes the hand that's holding his and hopes his message is understood.

 

(3) **Cherish**

As it turns out, it isn't the threat of impending death, the celebration of escaping impending death, nor is it aliens that makes their first kiss a reality.

It is, in fact, an average day and a typical conversation that proves to be the impetus.

"You can't watch the Star Wars movies in episode order and love them the same way as when you watch them in the order they were filmed," Sheppard argues, sitting close to Rodney on the couch—closer than he would have before the incident in the infirmary, which they still haven't discussed.

Rodney can't think of a rebuttal—mostly due to the fact that he's in complete agreement—and instead cups Sheppard's face and kisses him mid-sentence. John's hands clutch at the back of Rodney's shirt while his mouth responds, opening, his teeth nipping at Rodney's bottom lip.

_Thank God. Finally._ Rodney thinks, or maybe says, if John's puff of laughter is any indication.

"What about the movie?" John asks against the side Rodney's neck. "Isn't this something like blasphemy?"

"Leave it." Rodney pushes the laptop to the side of the coffee table with his foot, Luke still learning the way of the Force from Yoda. "You're worth it."

 

(2) **In Touch**

Sheppard is breaking the rules that they never really put in place or talked about, but are there all the same. They've touched in public before, yes--a pat on the shoulder/back/arm here, a brush of hand/hip/foot there. But this is different, deliberate, and Rodney's... right now he's stuck between wanting to kiss Sheppard or smack him in his too-cool-for-school head.

The set-up of the Okai's ceremonial meeting room reminds Rodney of some of his classes at university--benches instead of ergonomic seats, but a conference table is a conference table, be it made of Formica or Breaselan wood. And while Teyla and Elizabeth look positively rapt, Rodney can't muster the concentration to focus on what Nygel is talking about, and he's placing the blame squarely on Sheppard's shoulders.

Sheppard, whose hand slid over to his, turning it over and, while discussions of something or another were being held, whose fingertips skimmed over Rodney's open palm.

On the third pass, the light scrape of fingernail over a lifeline finally gels into a pattern for Rodney. Across, across, down. Pause. Down, ninety-degree angle, circle—

_Oh._

John's eyes are soft, his smile almost shy.

Maybe those rules never really existed.

Rodney leans in.

 

(4) **Argot**

"Touch me. Please."

This isn't the first time they've done this, or even the fiftieth (that anniversary was celebrated under scratchy woolen blankets on Hyperi), and John can't imagine ever not needing to feel Rodney's hands on his skin. Can't imagine ever not needing to touch Rodney in return.

He's never been the one with the words; he doesn't have Rodney's courage to say the things he feels. Their touch has become a language of its own, where John can find his voice.

Lazy, deep kisses that last for hours. Stripping away jackets and shirts and pants, kissing every inch of newly exposed skin. The sweet, slow slide of skin against skin, the build up of electricity and, finally, release.

_I could do this forever. I still can't believe I got you. I love you._

"John," Rodney says between breaths, his face flushed and vulnerable in ways that make John want to hurt anyone who would ever harm him.

John touches Rodney's face, kisses him, wraps his arms around him. _I'll protect you._

Rodney's fingers feel along the twin scars at John's shoulder—Kolya's mark, the memory of torture endured and witnessed—covering them, pulling him closer. _I'll protect you, too._

 

(5) **The Return**

The cramped twin bed, with its worn sheets and too-thin mattress, is more home than the feather-soft, king-sized (_empty._) beds back on Earth ever were.

After two months as exiles and six weeks apart from one another, they didn't even try to hide that this morning wouldn't find them anywhere but together.

Two black t-shirts rest tangled together at the foot of the bed—the arm of one poking through the neck of the other—while their owners are entangled beneath the sheets.

There's a mess of dark hair teasing Rodney's nose as he pulls himself from sleep, trailing his fingertips up over the ridges of John's spine until he cracks his elbow against the bedside table.

John's laughter tickles Rodney's skin and they barely manage to hold onto the edge of the mattress before they go tumbling to the floor.

Rather, Rodney, with throbbing arm, manages to remain upright, but John capsizes and lands, bare-assed, on the cool Atlantis floor.

"You win," Rodney concedes with a sigh, wrapping the sheet around his shoulders.

Sliding down to the floor in front of John, his knees bracketing John's thighs, Rodney reaches forward, wrapping John in his arms, the sheet.

"I missed you."


End file.
